The loosely organized forum held its first meeting this week in Palo Alto to begin discussing how to make the patent system work faster and cheaper.

“Businesses want to have more certainty in outcomes related to the patent system,” said Suzanne Harrison, a co-founder of the forum and a principal at Percipience LLC, a firm that advises companies on intellectual property matters. “To be a true business tool, we have to make (the patent system) business friendly.”

The forum, which wants to grow its ranks to include companies across multiple industries, doesn’t want to rely on legislative change, as was the case during the polarizing debate surrounding the Patent Reform Act of 2011. Instead these companies want to focus on topics that don’t rely on lawmakers, such as royalties, court rules, calculating damages or increasing education for patent examiners.

The issue of a smoother operating patent system has become ever more important to companies of all stripes. Economic prowess is increasingly determined through the development, control and sale of intellectual property, a term that covers such areas as copyright, patent, trademark and trade secrets.

The forum will hold at least two more meetings by October to define its agenda.

Helping to lead the forum is a small group of Silicon Valley patent experts, including Harrison, Ron Laurie and Jim O’Shaughnessy, members of Percipience LLC. They are joined by Paul Michel, a retired judge who handled patent cases on the Federal Circuit.

The forum does not want to be viewed as a lobbyist for a particular industry, organizers said. Rather it wants to be seen as a neutral, beneficial force that benefits all industries, such as the recent announcement by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that it will open a satellite bureau in Silicon Valley.

“We don’t see a single group that is out there trying to provide a neutral approach to these issues,” said Mark Radcliffe, a patent lawyer at DLA Piper LLP who is spreading the word about the forum.

Companies involved in the forum either declined comment or could not be reached.